What's the point of this forum?

condra

kelly1 wrote: »

My original idea was to try to point out that many atheists come across (to me at least) as arrogant and condescending towards believers.

They seem to think that science and reason are all that matter and will solve all our problems.

See:

kelly1 wrote:

People, I ask you, what is the point of the A&A forum?

- To pour scorn on and poke fun at those who believe in a loving Creator?
- A place where smug people gather to clap each other on the back and wonder at the stupidity of believers while they sit back and marvel at their own superior intelligence?
- A place to discuss lack of belief in God (why bother)?
- To blame all religions including the valid ones for all the ills of the world?
- To build up one's cynicism to ever increasing heights?
- To banish all traces of God from the world?

Or is there something positive that I've failed to notice?

Reads more to me like a childish sarcastic rant than an "idea" to point out anything.

That's my opinion anyway.

There's one for the books.

DublinWriter

kelly1 wrote: »

It's very clear that the world is in a big mess and it will only be resolved by turning to God.

Funnily enough, George W. Bush and Al-Qaeda share the same opinion too.

...and a great job they are making of things. Phew! We were nearly in a bigger mess there for a while until they came along.

kelly1 wrote: »

Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly deluded.

I'm happy to be deluded. I'm sure I'll be up there with the other Buddhists, Protestants, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics while we enviously watch you stroll through the gates of heaven with the sign over it saying "Catholics Only" as St.Peter tots up your Clubcard points.

kelly1

DublinWriter wrote: »

Funnily enough, George W. Bush and Al-Qaeda share the same opinion too.

...and a great job they are making of things. Phew! We were nearly in a bigger mess there for a while until they came along.

Nice try. What Bush and Bin Laden did is evil, nothing to do with God. Christ told us exactly how God wants us to live and there's nothing Christian about blowing up thousands of people.

DublinWriter wrote: »

I'm happy to be deluded. I'm sure I'll be up there with the other Buddhists, Protestants, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics while we enviously watch you stroll through the gates of heaven with the sign over it saying "Catholics Only" as St.Peter tots up your Clubcard points.

I didn't mention the word Catholic! Since the beginning, man has tried and failed to create a utopia without God on earth and it has never worked and never will. All the politician in the world will never be able to bring true peace to earth via science, politics, technology, sociology etc.

Technologist promised us that when things like diswashers and washing machines came along, we have more leisure time. Yeah right! We're too busy making the damn machines and earning the money to buy them!

Prosperity was supposed to bring an end to poverty but greed has made the gap between the rich and the poor only wider and the have-nots riot against the haves.

Psychiatry was supposed to bring us peace of mind but instead brings confusion and dependence on drugs. It has replaced the confession box.

What have political idealogies brought us? Wars, famine, protests and tear gas.

So what do people turn to? God? No, it's drink, drugs, money, sex, consumerism, new-age, tarot cards, astrology. Anything but God.

It's a mad, mad world. People believe the truth to be lies and believe lies to be true.

And no, I'm not a troglodyte luddite and I'm not depressed but I see what going on in this world, even in Ireland. Just look at the number of road deaths, drug overdoses, shootings, stabbings, suicides, turf wars between crime bosses etc. Why are so many people trying to escape from reality?

Scofflaw

kelly1 wrote: »

Unfortunately the thread has descended into chaos. My original idea was to try to point out that many atheists come across (to me at least) as arrogant and condescending towards believers.

They seem to think that science and reason are all that matter and will solve all our problems. It's very clear that the world is in a big mess and it will only be resolved by turning to God. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly deluded.

Since the vast mass of the world's population have already turned to some God or other, the evidence doesn't really support your proposal. Even if we only consider the Catholic bits, the evidence still doesn't support it - indeed, it points the other way, as usual.

Still, that's just objective fact, which one can easily ignore if one has sufficiently strong opinions.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Dades

kelly1 wrote: »

So what do people turn to? God? No, it's drink, drugs, money, sex, consumerism, new-age, tarot cards, astrology. Anything but God.

It's hard to turn to something that doesn't exist. Which is what you seem to expect of anyone with that belief. And not everybody has to 'turn' to something. Personally I just live my life.

5uspect

kelly1 wrote: »

I didn't mention the word Catholic! Since the beginning, man has tried and failed to create a utopia without God on earth and it has never worked and never will. All the politician in the world will never be able to bring true peace to earth via science, politics, technology, sociology etc.

Theocracy is the answer then?

Technologist promised us that when things like diswashers and washing machines came along, we have more leisure time. Yeah right! We're too busy making the damn machines and earning the money to buy them!

If anything working hours have dropped. I hope you're not extrapolating your own personal experiences onto society? Do you work in a dishwasher factory?

Prosperity was supposed to bring an end to poverty but greed has made the gap between the rich and the poor only wider and the have-nots riot against the haves.

Poverty has dropped significantly, in the western world at least. You really seem to be arguing against materialism here.

Psychiatry was supposed to bring us peace of mind but instead brings confusion and dependence on drugs. It has replaced the confession box.

Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that diagnoses mental disease through science and reason. It is infinitely better than confessing your sins (for simply being mentally ill ffs!) to some unqualified priest.

What have political idealogies brought us? Wars, famine, protests and tear gas.

Democracy has given us unprecedented peace, stability, freedom and security. The right to protest is a fundamental part of that.

So what do people turn to? God? No, it's drink, drugs, money, sex, consumerism, new-age, tarot cards, astrology. Anything but God.

Whats wrong with sex? Should we stop? How are ideas like astrology and tarot cards any different to your God? Do you really think people have turned to these things because the world is imploding?

It's a mad, mad world. People believe the truth to be lies and believe lies to be true.

Obviously...

And no, I'm not a troglodyte luddite and I'm not depressed but I see what going on in this world, even in Ireland. Just look at the number of road deaths, drug overdoses, shootings, stabbings, suicides, turf wars between crime bosses etc. Why are so many people trying to escape from reality?

Road deaths - Irish people are in general poor drivers.
Drug Overdoses - Too much money and not enough sense (we're bored of dishwashers)
Shootings, stabbings & turf wars - Greed TBH, but thats not a new trait in humanity.
Suicides - This is an interesting one. If you don't believe in an afterlife/god why throw your life away? Anyone have any data on this?

Asiaprod

kelly1 wrote: »

It's a mad, mad world. People believe the truth to be lies and believe lies to be true.

Oo, I just know that this will come back to haunt you, remember, it works both way.

kelly1 wrote:

What have political idealogies brought us? Wars, famine, protests and tear gas.

I do not normally get involved in this type of debate, but frankly, these can all be pinned on religious ideologies also. Why is so hard to accept that the world is also full of good non-religious people who have done a who lot of good for humanity. If your God is what you claim him/her to be, all loving and good, your statement definitely does not do him/her justice. Are you not guilty therefore of slandering your own Deity? I believe you are, can you convince me otherwise.

kelly1

Scofflaw wrote: »

Since the vast mass of the world's population have already turned to some God or other, the evidence doesn't really support your proposal. Even if we only consider the Catholic bits, the evidence still doesn't support it - indeed, it points the other way, as usual.

With respect Scofflaw, there's a big difference between believing in a god and actually giving yourself wholeheartedly to the God described by Jesus Christ.

John 15:10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and do abide in his love.

Luke 10:27 He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.

How many of us really love God as described above? 5%, 10%? Most of us love sin more than God.

Zillah

kelly1 wrote: »

I'm skeptical to be honest. Did you ever believe in God or have a relationship with Jesus no matter how tenuous?

As a child I was told what I was to believe, the usual Catholic-lite of the 80s and 90s. I'm sure there was a time where if you said "Do you believe in God?" I'd have said yes, more because I was told thats the right answer than I had any real idea of what the question actually meaned. As for Jesus, nope, nada. He was a guy with a beard that did some stuff on a mountain or something as far as I was concerned.

If so why did it end?

I can't see him, I can't touch him, I can't hear him. No matter what I did, pray beg scream bargain pledge all I ever got in return was the empty silence of an unforgiving Godless universe.

It didn't really end, in that I never actually understood what I was saying I believed in. As I got older and began to grasp what all this "God" stuff was about I realised that it was a very silly notion that I had never really believed in.

I don't see how God could call one person and not another.

Noel, thats kind of the point. I don't think he's called anyone.

Have you ever tried to get to know God? Have you ever made any effort at all? I really believe you must have missed something. If you say not, I'll have to accept your word for it.

As a child, very much so. But as I said above, cold empty silence of a Godless universe.

It's very clear that the world is in a big mess and it will only be resolved by turning to God. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly deluded.

Noel, thats a ridiculous thing to say and I think you know it. The world is in such a messed up state largely because people have been saying just the above sort of things for years. "Once the glory of Islam reaches all peoples then the world will be in peace!" "Only through Jesus and union with God will the world be healed!" "We must all pray to the Earth-Mother and sacrifice ten chickens to heal it" etc etc.

We have so so many religious people, who dislike each other as much as they dislike atheists, all insisting that the only way to fix the world is to have everyone join their religion. They're being narrow minded and naive. Don't be one of them Noel.

humanji

kelly1 wrote: »

Psychiatry was supposed to bring us peace of mind but instead brings confusion and dependence on drugs. It has replaced the confession box.

Surely you can't honestly believe psychiatry is a replacement for confession? How is confession going to help someone who is severly psychologically disturbed?

kelly1 wrote: »

What have political idealogies brought us? Wars, famine, protests and tear gas.

What has religion brought us? Pretty much the same.

kelly1 wrote: »

So what do people turn to? God? No, it's drink, drugs, money, sex, consumerism, new-age, tarot cards, astrology. Anything but God.

But why should anyone turn to God? If he exists, he's doing nothing for us, so why should people turn to him. They won't get any more answers, or any relief. People can lead amazing lives without God, so why give him credit for what we do, or beg him to stop the pain and suffering which he allows to happen?

kelly1 wrote: »

Why are so many people trying to escape from reality?

Because their lives suck. Believing in God won't make your life magically perfect. People who do believe do all the work themselves, but just give the credit to God.

As I said, not everyone is having a horrific life because they don't believe in God. There are plenty of people who don't believe in the Christian God and have great lives. And there are plenty of people who believe in the Christian God and are having terrible lives.

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

With respect Scofflaw, there's a big difference between believing in a god and actually giving yourself wholeheartedly to the God described by Jesus Christ.

John 15:10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and do abide in his love.

Luke 10:27 He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.

How many of us really love God as described above? 5%, 10%? Most of us love sin more than God.

God doesn't exist thats the point of the forum.

mossieh

kelly1 wrote: »

Why are so many people trying to escape from reality?

Noel, that's exactly what you're doing. Expecting the problems of the world to be solved by your imaginary friend in the sky.
Atheism is not an escape from reality, it embraces it.

To paraphrase someone else; " Prayer: How to do nothing and still feel like you're helping."

Scofflaw

kelly1 wrote: »

With respect Scofflaw, there's a big difference between believing in a god and actually giving yourself wholeheartedly to the God described by Jesus Christ.

John 15:10 If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and do abide in his love.

Luke 10:27 He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.

How many of us really love God as described above? 5%, 10%? Most of us love sin more than God.

Ah, the "no true Scotsman" defence. If everyone "really loved God", which is to say, presumably, behaved in every way as perfect Christians, then I'm sure the world would be a better place. However, the same would be true if everyone behaved as perfect Buddhists, or perfect Muslims, or perfect Communists, or my conception of perfect atheists. In other words, if everyone operated exactly according to the dictates of virtually any ethical system (there are some exceptions), it would have exactly the same effect.

Turning back to the real world, any theory that requires humanity to be perfectible has inevitably proved to be a disaster, often with a collateral damage level appropriate to a major pandemic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

pH

Scofflaw wrote: »

Since the vast mass of the world's population have already turned to some God or other, the evidence doesn't really support your proposal. Even if we only consider the Catholic bits, the evidence still doesn't support it - indeed, it points the other way, as usual.

Excellent point, and I think worth reinforcing as a rebuttal to all the "if you let God into your hearts the world would be such a great place" comments.

Even today the vast majority of the planet believe in some version of God, and have for the last few thousand years, from Isis to Christ, from Zeus to Ron Hubbard. We have seen pretty much every level of religious involvement in society, from theocracies to secular democracies, and it is fatuous to claim that any of the societies with high levels of religious worship have ever resolved the worlds problems.

Would anyone argue that the highly religious Catholic Ireland of say the 1950s was a better place to live that the Ireland of today?

kelly1 wrote:

Technologist promised us that when things like diswashers and washing machines came along, we have more leisure time. Yeah right! We're too busy making the damn machines and earning the money to buy them!

Prosperity was supposed to bring an end to poverty but greed has made the gap between the rich and the poor only wider and the have-nots riot against the haves.

When I first went to central Africa, I met a woman exactly the same age as me called Marie Abawede who had given birth to four children out in the rainforests. The first three had all died – of measles. Her last baby was sick, and she was convinced he had “the killer” too. “If he dies, I will die,” she said, plainly, without tears. In the year 2000, there were 396,000 women like this in Africa, watching their babies waste away pointlessly. Today, the figure has fallen by an incredible 90 percent. There are only 36,000 such women today, and there will be fewer next year, and the next year, and the next year.

This is because of pure science, combined with political will. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has used funds donated by governments across the world – including ours – to massively ramp up measles vaccinations across Africa, which cost just $1 a dose. It has worked. Vaccinations are perhaps the greatest achievement of humanity: using this scientific tool, we have literally eradicated Smallpox – a disease that caused hundreds of millions of people to die in howling agony – from the human condition. It will never kill another person, ever. That’s why the economist Jeffrey Sachs has called vaccines “Weapons of Mass Salvation”.

So whenever somebody tells you science is “cold” or “soulless”, and needs the “meaning” offered in religious texts, think of Marie. All the major religious texts say explicitly that disease is caused by demons and devils. Following this mentality left her babies to die. But using science instead – sticking to empirical observation of the world, and inferences from it based on reason – is saving millions of children, and giving them a chance at life once more. I can’t think of anything less “cold” or “soulless” than that.
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1229

Wacker

estebancambias wrote: »

Can I just clear something up here...people seem to have this idea that I am some kind of Fundamentalist...wrong...I am nothing of the sort

Winston Churchill (I think) once said that a fundamentalist is "someone who can't change their opinions and won't change the subject."

I know it is only one definition of the word fundamentalist, but I think you'll agree that you certainly fit it!

kelly1

People, clearly my arguments are having no impact whatsoever.

I am speaking from personal experience. All I know is that my life has changed *dramatically* for the better since I placed my trust in Jesus Christ. I now understand how much He loves us and why He died for us and I will always be grateful to my Saviour for His love and mercy to me.

Anyway, I'll leave you all in peace and I wish you well.

Take care and God bless,
Noel.

Ciaran500

You're taking the easy way out.

Dades

kelly1 wrote: »

Anyway, I'll leave you all in peace and I wish you well.

Take care and God bless,
Noel.

Don't be a stranger!

There's plenty of other threads looking for a different perspective.

Beruthiel

kelly1 wrote: »

People, clearly my arguments are having no impact whatsoever.

Did you think you could change our minds in some way?
I'm afraid you're not preaching to the choir here.
I have the feeling that you haven't given your beliefs a long hard look with a logical eye.

All I know is that my life has changed *dramatically* for the better since I placed my trust in Jesus Christ.

Or,
You decided to change your life dramatically and have given a god the credit for it instead of placing the credit on yourself.

Zillah

kelly1 wrote: »

People, clearly my arguments are having no impact whatsoever.

Its because they're really bad arguments. If you make some good ones they'll have lots of impact.

Hivemind187

Seriously ... how did this thread not get locked?

+1 for the liberalism and openminded attitude to argument on the A&A forum methinks

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

didn't you storm out a while ago?

stevejazzx

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Seriously ... how did this thread not get locked?

+1 for the liberalism and openminded attitude to argument on the A&A forum methinks

Oddly enough this is one the few threads on here which could of done with a bit vigilant atheism but considering the subject matter such actions were off the table from day one...ahh irony it's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a fork....hold on a second..no it's not!

Asiaprod

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Seriously ... how did this thread not get locked?

Why on earth would we lock it, its fascinating:)

Whispered

stevejazzx wrote: »

Oddly enough this is one the few threads on here which could of done with a bit vigilant atheism but considering the subject matter such actions were off the table from day one...ahh irony it's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a fork....hold on a second..no it's not!

Ah stevejazzx, if you're going to quote the great alanis please get the words right, it's like ten thousands spoons when all you need is a knife,

stevejazzx

helena.ryan wrote: »

Ah stevejazzx, if you're going to quote the great alanis please get the words right, it's like ten thousands spoons when all you need is a knife,

Now that's what I call Irony (volume 5):)

legspin

helena.ryan wrote: »

Ah stevejazzx, if you're going to quote the great alanis please get the words right, it's like ten thousands spoons when all you need is a knife,

Pet peeve.

IT'S NOT IRONIC.

It would only be ironic if you find out afterwards that a spoon would have done the job at hand

I'll just go back in to my corner now

Whispered

ok what about a traffic jam, when you're already late?

stevejazzx

helena.ryan wrote: »

ok what about a traffic jam, when you're already late?

I think it was the fiarly mediocre Ed Byrne who did the bit about: Unless you're a town planner. If you were a town planner and you were on your way to a seminar of town planners at which you were giving a talk on how you solved the problem of traffic congestion in your area, couldn't get to it because you were stuck in a traffic jam, that'd be well ironic."


Surely you can close this one now Dadaes...I mean thae last four posts were about Alanis morisette!

Whispered

dont close the thread coz of that, i wont mention alanis again, besides you started it!!